The trucking industry has an ongoing problem with fuel theft. Trucking companies normally issue fuel cards to drivers. The drivers purchase fuel for company trucks at national refueling chains (i.e., truck stops).
A large problem is that owner operators also frequent such refueling stations. Company drivers often make deals with owner operators to allow the owner operators use of a company fuel card for a cash payment. For example, the owner operator will give the company driver $50 in cash to purchase $150 of fuel on the company fuel card, saving the owner operator $100 in fuel costs. This type of fraud is very difficult for the fleet operators to detect and prevent, because the amount of diverted fuel may be sufficiently small relative to the miles that the fleet vehicle is driven by the driver so as to be difficult to notice, even when fuel use patterns of the vehicle are analyzed.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a more secure method and apparatus for implementing fuel authorization in the trucking industry that actually prevents owner operators from stealing fuel charged to a fleet operator account. Knowing the actual amount of fuel required in a vehicle before authorizing a fuel transaction will further help reduce diversion of fuel.